Philematophobia
by Eevee
Summary: Love is not easy. And particularly not when you desperately don't want anything to do with it [Rukazu, quazi-romance and various other couplings just for fun. Unfinished.]


AN: This was supposed to be mockery. Of a lot of different people, opinions and things.Unfortunately, it did not end up as such. It would have if it hadn't been for the fact that my mother told me that the pill doesn't protect me from STD in case I ever get a boyfriend, and I very nearly laughted in her face at the mer idea of me being in love. Maybe it even would have if I hadn't seen one too many OOC confession of love. Those are evil, I tell you…

Anyway.

I don't bother with the Valentines Day/White Day crap, and I really do hope that you don't mind horribly considering that I'm also one of those evil people who can't possibly handle English grammar or write in character because I'm a dubbie by choice and don't like fangirl Japanese.

Shounen-ai and generally unusual pairings here. Digimon Tamers does not belong to me. 

***

__

Happiness is like peeing yourself. Everybody can see it but only you can feel its warmth 

- unknown

***

It was time of year that is longed for by the lovers, and dreaded by those who are lonely. It was bad enough with the intolerable amounts of pink, hearts, cupids and lovesick couples, and was _not_ particularly helped by the fact that the latter seemed to be springing up everywhere Rika Nonaka sat her foot.

Suddenly and more unexpected than it should have been, it had started with Ryo asking Alice out in front of everybody half a year ago and gotten worse as time passed and the trend got bigger. And now it was February, and her life which usually would have been spent rolling her eyes at all the lovers running around with hormones going high-wire in the early spring was now spent trying to avoid being dragged into any big social gatherings by her friends because that would mean more of those.

Bitter she wasn't, but old resentment for everything that could be remotely connected to the adjective "feminine" was still very much active, and as teenage girls are supposed to long for romance and romantic boyfriends, or at least have somebody whose hand they could hold in the presence of their friends, the mer idea disgusted Rika. She could _tolerate_ it as long as it wasn't shoved into her face, but that got so very hard when the only one of her friends who wasn't acting like a complete looser in the presence of somebody else was the one who's interest in girls stopped at the bikini posters. 

Yes, the Tamers had reached puberty, and Valentines Day was nearing.

*

Kazu had led a relatively peaceful life as that went. Sure, he'd been closer to death more times than a professional stunt man (and Digimon weren't the only cause of that), and sure, his parents had troubles getting him insurances because of his rumor, but when it came down to it, Kazu _had_ led a peaceful life. He'd never been bullied in school, his parents had a happy marriage, there were no economic problems, and nobody of his closer kinship died. And because of his extraordinary ability to ignore danger, Kazu had never had to suffer through any greatly traumatizing experiences.

However, living a peaceful life didn't necessarily mean living a satisfied life. Now, Kazu wasn't known for being one to sit on his butt and whine instead of doing something with the things that bothered him, but that was when it was things like TV antennas, boring teachers, angry dogs or uncomfortable silences. Lovesick best friends was something entirely new, and the standard procedure of scrunching his nose and 'ew'-ing loudly when he saw people kissing just didn't have the same effect when he was alone, and they didn't really seem to notice him doing it anyway.

Once, kissing girls had been something icky they sure weren't going to do when they grew up. Then they _did_ grow up, and his friends started thinking that kissing girls maybe wasn't so bad at all. 

Kazu, however, had never quite grown out of that.

Sometimes, when his blood sugar level got low enough, he would think about how things had used to be. It was, what, two years ago now. Or maybe three… he wasn't entirely sure, but something like that, anyway. Two or maybe three years ago, Jeri Katou had gathered Takato's attention. It had been one of those silly little things at first, and he and Kenta had teased him because of it, but they never really _meant_ it, or at least… he hadn't thought… because… because Takato couldn't be _serious_ about wanting to be with her like _that_, that was why. No, Kazu knew, Takato couldn't have been, but then it had turned out that he _was_, and when that happened, there had really been way too much going on for them to concentrate on _that_. But after it all had ended, and after all the fights were done and life was normal and Kazu could experience days that weren't constant adrenaline rushes, he had gotten back to that thinking part, and he had came to a scary conclusion.

Love was real.

"He got me flowers."

He had long ago learned that if Henry got Takato something, it wouldn't matter how much he called Takato a girl for rambling on about it later, because Takato would be too ecstatic to care. Guardromon and Guilmon seemed to have gathered this knowledge as well, at least judging by the way they'd both lost interest in the conversation when Kenta asked Takato about how last night had been. The former was now asleep in the sun, and the latter was laughing in the background as he was playing tag with Calumon. Marineangemon was sitting on Kenta's head, gazing silently at them. Kazu wasn't entirely sure about just how much the little pink Digimon understood about human relationships, but from where this conversation seemed to be going, he hoped it wasn't used to be discussing things like this.

"Roses?"

Vigorous nodding, and Takato closed his eyes and smiled dreamily as he leaned backwards. Kenta smiled, and neither noticed Kazu rolling his eyes.

It wasn't the fact that Takato had ended up with Henry that bothered him. Not the fact that Takato had ended up with another boy, nor the fact that he had ended up with… well, someone as _boring _as Henry. What _bothered_ him was the way the two of them were so very obviously and very sickeningly in love, and made no attempt in hiding it.

"What are you, a _girl_ or something?"

Because when he'd been in love with Jeri, Takato had been quiet and shy and never said anything, just been painfully obvious about his affections so that the only one who possibly couldn't have known was Jeri herself. He'd never worked up the courage to tell her anything, and after a while, it seemed like he was letting it go. Then there had been the day that had revealed that not only did Jeri have a fondness for green-haired nerds, but also that Kenta seemingly hadn't told them everything about his own feelings for the girl. So, after three days of awkward tension between the two boys (which had been one of the most annoying experiences Kazu could _ever_ remember), Kenta had spoken to Jeri, and Takato had looked a bit sad, but shrugged it off and kept on living his life seemingly without being bothered by that anymore.

So just how he could've fallen so bad for _Henry_ off all people was really beyond Kazu. Not only were Henry and Jeri miles apart on the personality scale (okay, slight overstatement), there was always the fact that Henry _was_ a boy, and not to mention that neither ever really showed any kind of interest beyond friendship in the other until they day they showed up showing hands… the entire thing tended to give Kazu a headache when he tried to figure it out.

The brown-haired tamer only smiled blissfully as he flopped down in the grass and stared up in the sky, ignoring his friend's comment as he closed his eyes and folded his arms under his head. He sighed a sigh of those who are deeply content, and Kenta grinned at him.

"So I take it you had fun?" he asked, leaning over slightly so he could get a better look at the other boy.

"Yeah…" Takato confirmed, still not opening his eyes or getting rid of that ridiculous smile. Kazu was about to tell him that they didn't need any details, but Kenta interrupted him by asking what they had been doing.

Last night had been the night to celebrate that it had been one month since Henry and Takato had done something or the other, and this was apparently special enough for it to require that they did something else than whatever it was they did when they hung out together like they did every other evening as well, and Kenta seemed unnecessarily interested in what that had been.

Actually, Kazu mused, it might just have been that Takato hadn't really known that he had fallen for Henry. The thing with Jeri had been different from the thing with Henry in so many ways, most importantly, that the thing with Henry actually had gotten somewhere. Or, the thing with Henry had _been_, as nobody had known anything before it happened. So it probably made sense if Takato hadn't know either, because Takato had never been among those to hide his feelings. It still didn't explain just _how_ it all came to be (he guessed that Henry must've had at least _some_ part in it), but…. Ow. Headache coming on.

Maybe he just should ask him.

"Hey, Takato?"

"Mmm?"  
"Since when did you even like Henry?"

"I don't know."

Right.

"So you just suddenly did one day?"

"No…" Well, at least he'd accomplished getting that look away from his friend's face as he rolled over and propped himself up on his elbows. Takato actually seemed to think about this himself. He rested his head in one hand, and his eyes set on something far away. "Actually… I…. I really don't know."

"You 'don't know'?" Kazu repeated mockingly. "Come on, man, you must've realized there was _something_ going on before you just suddenly started to hold his hand one day."

"Oh, I know when I _realized_ it, all right." And the annoying smile was back on his face as Takato laughed and flopped down, crossing his arms in front of him.

"Which was…" Kenta inquired, leaning forwards to poke the other boy's nose with a twig he'd broken of a bush and spent he last minutes picking all the bark from. 

Takato lifted a hand to swat it away from his face, and sighed again. "When he kissed me."

"Oh, _give me a break_!"

He was probably supposed to know just why Takato gave him such an offended glare, but didn't intuitively, and really didn't care enough to figure it out either, so he settled with ignoring it instead. "I mean _seriously_…"

"I _am_ serious!" Takato said indignantly, sitting up and staring at him.

"Dude, that kind of thing only happens in stupid chick flicks."

"Well, it happened to me, too!" Takato insisted. It almost sounded like it was hurting his feelings that Kazu didn't believe him, but he kept on talking when he didn't get any reply besides a disbelieving glare. "I know it must sound… you know, silly, but… I really _mean_ it, Kazu! When Henry kissed me, it was…"

"Magic?" Kazu suggested sarcastically.

"No…yes! I mean… it was… it was like…" he didn't seem like he was interested in arguing anymore with the way his voice suddenly was quiet and his eyes were set on the ground.

"It sounds great."

They both turned towards Kenta, who blushed.

"What?"

"I mean… I… with Jeri and me, it's great, but… but what you say about Henry…" he suddenly seemed more confident, and smiled at Takato, "It sounds wonderful."

The two boys smiled at each other, as if they shared a secret of some kind, and Kazu suddenly felt very left out. 

Takato settled down, once again crossing his arms in front of him and smiling peacefully.

"It is, Kenta." He confirmed. "It is."

"Whose side are you on anyway?"

__

Not the right thing to say - Takato glared at him again, and Kenta looked confused.

"I didn't even know this was an argument." His best friend pointed out a bit impatiently.

"Yeah, well…" Kazu crossed his arms and looked angrily at him, but it was without any effect at all lacking an argument to emphasize, and the other two seemed to be ignoring him again.

"Roses, huh?"

Two or maybe three years ago, Jeri Katou had entered Takato's life and started all of this. And if it hadn't been for the fact that they were unlikely to listen, Kazu would have pointed out that what he had said the entire time was true: 

Girls were evil.

Which of course would have worked so very much better if he'd ever been able to figure out whether it was Henry or Takato who counted as the girl in that relationship.

*

"Much as I'd like to keep on talking, Pumpkin, I have to go."

"Your company will not be missed." She pulled the bill out of her wallet and slapped it into the hand he was holding out with a smug grin.

"A pleasure doing business with you, sweetie." he said and reached the other out to ruffle her hair, just to get it violently slapped away.

"Do you want Alice to hear that?" she asked acidly, but he only laughed.

"Oh, she knows she's the only one for me."

"Since when did you become such a sap?"

"Since I realized that you might just be a bit out of my league."

"It took you that long?"

He smiled at her in such a friendly manner that it only served to make her angrier, and waved cheerily as he turned around and ran down the road with Monodramon following.

"Jerk."

"Really?"

"No." she said, walking in the opposite direction without looking at Renamon. "Just…" not knowing what else to say, she kicked a trashcan she walked by, "He's _him_."

"And that would be?"

"The only boy I've ever known who isn't a wuss, a moron, or both."

"So because you like him better than the others, you have to treat him worse?"

"Who said I liked him better?!"

The yellow Digimon glanced at her from where she was seated on a fence. "I assumed."

"He's a jerk." Rika said again as if she needed to assure herself of the matter.

"Who?"

Jeri had appeared out of nowhere, and was now smiling at Rika as she walked backwards to be able to meet her eyes.

"No-one." The red-haired girl replied, giving her tiny smile in return. She did have a policy about not letting Jeri suffer from her own bad moods, and as the auburn-haired girl had a strange ability to cheer her up anyway, she saw no reason to scowl at her.

"Ryo?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Do you need reasons?"

"There usually are."

"I lost a bet and he was an ass about it."

Jeri looked surprised. "You take bets?"

"Forget it." 

And that was something Jeri did, because that she had a bright look on life and didn't see the use in getting Rika in a worse mood than she already was. So she turned around so that she was walking forward again, and eagerly changed the topic into more interesting things than Rika and Ryo's latest arguments.

"I thought that we ought to do something together tonight." At Rika's questioning glance, she shrugged, "I mean, something more than just hanging out."

"Like what?" It didn't seem like the other girl noticed the nervousness at the question. Jeri sometimes had ideas that didn't quite match those of her friends, but had a scary ability to get them to agree, and there were certain things Rika wanted to out of the picture before words reached the boys. If Jeri was persuasive with her, she was a dictator with the male tamers. It was most likely a mix of sympathy, friendship and the frail innocence that radiated from her entire being. Takato was naturally one of those people who are unable of saying no, Henry didn't go against his friends' wishes unless there was a very good reason for doing so, and Kenta had spent too many years in the shadow of Kazu to have been unaffected. While the boy wasn't naturally a pushover, you didn't really have to do much more than tell him to sit down and shut it to get him out of the picture. Something Jeri often did, only in a much nicer manner. Ryo, whenever he was with them, didn't speak against her because of what Rika assumed to be politeness, and Kazu would complain, but always ended up doing it anyway. And Rika herself had never been quite able to say no to Jeri no matter what, for some unexplainable reason. When it came down to it, the only person who hadn't seen Jeri mourning over Leomon close and managed to stay somewhat unaffected by her sweet being was Alice, who would point out obvious flaws and voice her opinion firmly enough for Jeri to listen, which was sort of funny as the one who could relate to Jeri's feelings about loosing her partner the best had to be Alice herself. There was a long history of things nobody but Jeri had wanted to do, and they still had ended up doing and regretted bitterly afterwards, and Rika had learned to grow cautious for signs of such projects.

Jeri, not unexpectedly, had it all planned out, and she eagerly started explaining. "Movies. We can watch movies or something. I just found a box with a lot of old videos in a closet at home, and I figured that it'd be a shame for them to rot away there. What do you think?" 

Which of course brought on the unavoidable question in such a situation. "Which movies?"

Jeri shrugged as she they left the road to walk up to where the boys were most likely hanging out: Guilmon's hide. "A lot of different ones. I didn't really go through all of them, but I'm sure we'll be able to agree on a few good ones."

Knowing Jeri's way of "agreeing", Rika didn't satisfy with that.

"What kind of movies?"

"I don't know, I didn't really go through them all."

"Like romance?"

Jeri shrugged, but instead of replying, waved a hand in the air to greet the two boys and four Digimon who were sat before them.

Rika had a feeling that this could turn out to be much more unpleasant than Jeri's "plans" usually tended to be.

*

"Hey, Kazu, where's…"

"They're over by the hide." He grumbled and put a lot of effort into looking peevish. It didn't really seem like they noticed it, though.

"See? I _told_ you they'd be there."

"Well, I thought that since Kazu's here…" Henry broke of from the discussion with his Digimon to look curiously at Kazu, "Say, why _are_ you standing here?"

"The two sissies didn't like my views on things." He said with a glare in the direction from which Guilmon's laugher now could be heard. Of course, since Henry was Henry and a nice guy, he did just as predicted, and Kazu cursed himself for being honest and made a soon forgotten promise about thinking before speaking. 

"Did you argue about something?" he asked.

"Well duh." Terriermon said.

"No." 

"Then why…"

"Look, Rosie, just go over there and…. Do whatever it is you plan to do, and leave me, okay?!"

"_Rosie_? Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Terriermon! Of course not, and why are you angry with me?"

Realizing that being nasty to Henry probably wouldn't make Takato more inclined to turn normal again and that it didn't make him feel as good as he'd first thought it would, Kazu slumped down on the bench and kicked the grass beneath him instead.

"Just go, will you?"

Henry looked mildly concerned, and set his hands to his sides, probably preparing for a long lecture of some kind.

"Look, if there's anything…"

"No! There is nothing you can do except stop being you or move to the other side of the city so I don't have to meet you and watch you and Takato playing kissy-face every time I try to hang out with my friends, but you won't do that and you won't make Kenta and Takato turn into normal boys again or at least make it so that I won't be the only one who still realizes that romance is something that should not be messed with because it ruins your life or at least all your friends and it is just annoying but you can't help that so just GO!"

By the time he had to breathe again, both Terriermon and his tamer was staring at him.

"Jeez Henry, what did you do _this_ time?"

He choose to leave instead of having Henry hear him out about what had happened. The other boy had an annoying ability to point out things he didn't really want to admit to himself, and he had a nagging feeling that the reason he was hanging out friend-and-partner less now wasn't so obviously because he'd been ganged up at as he'd like to think.

*

"Movies." Jeri said for what must have been the fifteenth time, and reached out to throw her arms around Guilmon. "We can watch movies."

Takato, Henry, Kenta and Terriermon all looked terrified at her.

"I like movies!" Guilmon agreed. Takato looked nervously at his partner.

"I don't think she's talking about… um… _our_ kind of movies…" he said, and got to his feet to sit down on the other side of the red Digimon. 

"'_Your_' kind of movies?" Terriermon asked for all of them. Takato blushed slightly and muttered something that nobody managed to recognize under his breath.

When nobody said anything more, Jeri huffed and sat back. "Do you want to or not?"

Nobody said anything until Henry asked the question Rika had ten minutes earlier. "What kind of movies?"

And it was predictable, of course. Jeri was one of the Tamers, but the only one who really was a girl. And maybe Henry wouldn't want to watch a movie just to see the White House get blown to Kingdom Come or some alien get splattered by Will Smith, but he was obviously aware of the fact that with Jeri supplying the selection, romance was likely to be well represented. 

And the boys who can fully enjoy a romance are few and will never admit so no matter what.

The reply was the same. "A lot of different ones."

This didn't seem to relax any of them the slightest. Takato hadn't seemed too bothered by the idea from the beginning off, but Henry didn't stick with his usual indifferent attitude, and Kenta was probably trying to find a way to get himself out of this. And when Kenta tried to get away from something Jeri wanted, he expected the worst out of it. The relationship between the two of them was a strange mix of friendship and crushes and something more, and while they were less infatuated than Henry and Takato, there was no doubt that they were a couple, and Kenta really did care about Jeri. Not to the extent of letting her rule his life, but he didn't protest as much to her bad ideas as to the others'. But then again, that might have been the fact that nobody ever really was able to telling Jeri "no" as well.

"Like romance?"

She shrugged.

"Romance?" Kenta repeated warily.

"Some." She said indifferently and patted Guilmon's head, and it was made clear that yes, there was, and yes, the chance of them avoiding it was small.

"Is romance bad?"

The three of them (four if you counted Terriermon) looked at Marineangemon, torn between the obvious urge to say yes and equally clear expectation to say no. The little pink Digimon was floating in the air between Kenta and Henry, and blinked innocently at them.

"It doesn't _have_ to be." Henry said after a minute of silence, "But usually boys find romance to be sort of… um… _boring_, if you understand…"

"Like homework?"

"Um…"

Nobody said anything more about the matter, but Jeri was not to let them forget.

"Well?"

"We should ask Kazu."

The boys looked at her as if she was some sort of saint, and Jeri didn't seem to realize that it was a frantic attempt of escape.

"You're right." She agreed and looked away from the others, "He'll probably want to know as well. Where is he?"

"Down by the fountain sulking." Terriermon said and bent down over Henry's head. "He seemed really pissed off about something. What were you arguing about?"

Kenta and Takato looked at each other with similar expressions of hesitance and dobut. "I'm not really sure." Kenta confessed, "I think it was Henry, though…" 

"No, it wasn't that any longer." Takato corrected him, but it didn't seem like he had anything more to contribute with. " I really don't know what made him so angry, though, I mean, we were just talking…"

"Maybe he was hungry?" Guilmon suggested.

"No, he was angry, alright." Terriermon said, crossing his arms on top of Hern'ys head and nodding confidently. "You guys should've heard the rant he gave Henry here when he wanted to know why."

"Well, someone should go fetch him so you guys can make up!" Jeri, who had been forgotten for the past minutes, was now sitting on her knees, looking both distressed and determinated. It was hardly a surprise considering how much she hated it when people were fighting, and there was no doubt that she wanted to get something done about it, too. It also seemed like she had forgotten about her plans for the evening, which in Rika's opinion was just as well. And as good deeds always are best when you're doing them willingly, she volunteered to find the boy and drag him back up there so he could make peace with his friends and hopefully steer the conversation over to other topics than Valentines Day and movie nights.

*

After an eternity of utter boredom (it must have been been at least twenty minutes), Rika came walking casually down from the same direction in which Henry had left. Kazu only acknowledge her with a glance, and then went back to pitching stones into the puddle by his feet.

"Why aren't you hanging out with the love-junta?" 

"Because of that."

"Because of what?"

"I have better things to spend my time on than gushing about how great it is to be in love."

"Filling up a puddle of water?" Rika asked doubtfully, but her voice lost the usual acidic tone as she continued. "I see your point, though."

"Tell me about it." he said, and threw a stone with extra fervor. It hit the water with enough force to send a few drops flying towards Rika, who took a step backwards.

"Watch it!" 

"Since when did _you_ care about what your clothes look like?" he asked sourly, picking up another stone and made an extra effort to make it spray water on her.

"Since I don't want to walk around in a _skirt_ or something the rest of the day because this is my last pair of clean jeans and my grandmother washed the rest this morning. And for your information, just because I don't want to look like a girl doesn't mean I want to look like a slob." She retorted and stepped into the shallow part of the water, showering his legs and shoes.

"Hey!"

Later, he never really figured out why he did it. It might've been the fact that throwing stones far from relieved the aggravation from having fought with both Takato and Kenta about something he didn't see how he could even loose at, or the way yelling at Henry only made him feel lousier. Perhaps was it some sort of misplaced reaction because of the way he'd been shunned by his friends earlier, or simply boredom.

Most likely, though, was it that he forgot who he was sparring with and followed the rules of the wild, saying that an eye for an eye is about the right amount of revenge for most crimes.

Rika glared at him, and didn't notice him swinging his leg backwards before it was too late, and she was drenched with muddy water. Realizing what he just had done, Kazu took a step backwards as he stared at the girl without any effort done to hide the fear that was paralyzing him. 

Surprisingly, Rika just stared at him for a minute. Then she blinked, looked down at the white fabric of her shirt, which now was dotted with pale brown spots, and her pants, which were clinging more than usual to her legs, and then looked up at him again. She shook the water out of her hair, and clenched a fist, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

"Just what, Shiota, is your goddamn PROBLEM?!"

There were no answers to that, and Kazu didn't take his time coming up with any as Rika stepped forward, ignoring that she only got wetter as she ran through the puddle to tackle him where he still was frozen to the spot. He hit the ground hard, and the air was forced out of his lungs by her weight on top of him. 

This was the start of a long and even fight. Rika was, unsurprisingly, stronger and far more used to fighting than most other girls, but Kazu did have the natural advantage of being male, and neither of them managed to gain total control for long periods of time. Rika didn't use dirty tricks as a principle, and Kazu minded her femininity just enough to not use them on her. This was also the only way he bothered with it, because the old doctrine which tells that boys will not hit girls or kids younger than themselves didn't work around Rika.

Maybe it was because the lack of dresses, cute things, and other things that usually made a girl. Maybe it was the fact that she had beat up boys two years older than her, and that her entire attitude was affected by the fact that she could do this. No matter what, the result was that in his mind, Rika Nonaka wasn't a _girl_.

It stroke him as odd that he was thinking about this while trying to reach around and somehow undo the strap of the bra he _knew_ she used due to loud complaining about the matter, which also had enlightened him about why girls wore those things in the first place. Maybe it would be cheating, but having it loose would maybe distract her enough to let him get away. Except that he didn't really want to anymore.

They must have been fighting for about five minutes or so when he dimly noticed something that sounded like Calumon cheering them on in the background. But as the possibility of being drowned was more important than whether or not the tamerless Digimon was misunderstanding the situation completely, that didn't bother either of them much, despite the fact that they both knew that the other wouldn't really do anything to hurt them. Sometime during the last minutes the mood had changed, and they weren't really fighting as much as they were battling. 

They continued wrestling in the water as if in a strange agreement. He knew that she could take him out if she really wanted to, and he was pretty sure that he was the same, but somehow, he didn't. This fight wasn't about survival or revenge or whatever it had started as, it had developed into something more. They hit each other, but never hard enough to cause injuries that would turn the fight. Anger and aggravation and something he couldn't quite identify mixed together into this strange mutuality, and he could tell by the way she didn't look as angry as she looked determined that she agreed.

He suddenly knew that it wasn't about whether or not they had intentionally been picking fights, but about fighting each other, and it wasn't even about fighting any longer, it was something unidentifyable 

"What are they doing?"

They both looked up from trying to duck the other under water.

"I'm not exactly sure." Renamon said, and leered curiously at them, "I have to admit that I've never seen such behavior from any humans at that age."

Jeri looked worriedly down at them, and Kazu let go of Rika's hair and fell down on his back as she released her grip on his shirt.

"Consider yourself lucky." She spat and crawled off him, wiping her face and standing up far too gracefully for somebody who just had been rolling around in cold water trying to kill someone else in it.

"Oh yeah? Well, if you hadn't been a _girl_…" He stopped talking when she turned around and glowered at him.

"Why were you fighting?"

They both looked at Takato, turned to stare at each other, and as if it was some sort of secret between them, they both said "nothing" and walked off together, leaving their friends to stare after them as they left the park side by side with their partners following, she with a slight limp and he clutching his left elbow.

*

"Kazu?"

"What?!"

She was pretty sure that the boy had never had such a hateful tone of voice when he spoke to his partner before.

"Is this one of the things that will make your mother ground you?"

"Fuck."

"Does that mean yes?"

"Yeah."

"Good going, genius."

"If I wanted your opinion, I'd ask."

She didn't reply more to that.

They walked in silence again, neither talking to anyone. Renamon was silent, as she understood when situations required such, and Guardromon seemed to have gotten the hint after being snubbed by his Tamer and didn't say anything either. They simply walked in a companionable silence that was straight out bizarre considering what they had been doing five minutes before in the vague direction of her house. 

This continued until a frantic voice was heard calling their names, and Jeri came running up behind them. She didn't slow down until she was by them, and the assumed long run hadn't affected her in any way except that her hair was a bit tousled. Jeri had a surprisingly good stamina.

"Are you guys okay?" she asked.

"Why wouldn't we be?" Kazu replied before she had the chance, and Jeri poked his side, making him wince. It seemed like he had an unseen injury under his shirt.

"Kenta told me to remind you that your mother will ground you if she gets to know about this. They're out looking for you."

"Great." He muttered and turned around without another word, stalking down in the direction Jeri had come from with Guardromon following, once again trying to strike conversation.

The two girls and the Digimon looked after him, until Jeri shrugged. "What was that about, anyway?"

Rika narrowed her eyes against the sun.

"Nothing." She said at last, "Let's go home."

*

"What did you do?"

"Nothing." He said curtly and batted Henry's hands away, only to find Kenta holding his hand down as the blue-haired tamer once again reached out, this time successfully brushing the moist fabric against his skin. "Stop!"

"I have to clean it." Henry said with his characteristic, and annoying, calmness, ignoring Kazu's left hand, which soon enough was restricted by Takato.

"It hurts! Let go!"

"Seriously, what _did_ you do?"

"Nothing."

"Do you know where Rika and Jeri went?"

"What do you care?" he snapped, and yelped in pain as Henry grabbed his chin and forcefully turned him away from Kenta to press the tissue against his cheek. "Ow!"

"Jeri had planned out something for later tonight, but we never really got to the point because she heard Calumon and wanted to find out what it was. I guess she went home or something, but you're the one who saw her the last time." Takato replied.

"Try Rika's place." He said grumpily and tore his hand loose to swat it after Henry's blue hair.

Nothing else was said for the next few minutes except occasional swearing from Kazu as Henry cleaned up all visible cuts with the tissue smelling of spirits he'd found in the medicine cabinet in the Matsuki bakery. The three boys had decided that it was unlikely that he'd walk home when he knew that his mother discovering the fighting meant that he'd be grounded for at least a week, and mutual searching had made them meet up right outside their school, from which he'd been dragged over to Takato's house to be set in a decent shape again, hopefully saving his freedom for the rest of the month. The hope now was that Mrs. Matsuki didn't plan on using her centrifuge anytime soon. Kazu was currently sitting on the toilet lid, only wearing a t-shirt and some underwear borrowed from Takato.

"Seriously, why did you pick a fight with Rika?"

"What does that matter to you?!" he snapped, and found his face wrenched away from Takato with a gruff order to stay still so they could get it over with. "And she started it, too."

"Oh?"

"Did I ask for your opinion?"

"Rika doesn't pick fights." Henry said and let go of his face to inspect his left arm, calmly keeping it in his grip when Kazu tried to pull it loose. He was surprisingly strong.

"Oh yeah?"

"She does many things, but she stopped picking fights long ago, so that must have been your doing." 

"Is that any of your business?"

"Picking fights with Rika is suicide. And not even _you_ do things like that." Kenta remarked and ducked as Kazu ripped his arm out of his grip and swung it after his head.

"Maybe I'm just not afraid of her." He said, and caught Henry off guard as he tore his arm loose and clutched the burning cut just long enough to realize that touching it only made it smart more.

"Yes," Henry said and grabbed hold of his arm again, "And maybe you just let her do this to you as a stress reliever."

That earned him a punch that was just barely stopped by Takato.

*

Will Jeri get her evil plans through? Will Kazu be forced to admit that girls might just be more likeable than he wants them to be? Will we see any Jenkato interaction despite Eevee's deep and utter hatred for writing sap? Stay tuned for the next chapter! (Really!)

…And I really don't have a habit of begging for reviews, but I am so entirely not sure about this, for several reasons I won't bore you with now. So if you have any sort of comment, anything at all, I'll greatly appreciate it if you'd tell me. I love constructive criticism, and it'll increase the chances of me continuing this instead of my crappy Daikeru (which oddly enough have some of the same ideas) or finish of one of the one million other half-written stories on my harddrive.


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